french president Emmanuel Macron canceled on Saturday an official trip to Germany after a fourth consecutive night of rioting and looting in France that defy a massive police deployment. Hundreds of people attended the funeral of the 17-year-old whose murder by police sparked the riots.
The Interior Ministry announced that during the last night of violence, 1,311 people were arrested across the country, where 45,000 police officers were deployed in a hitherto unsuccessful attempt to restore order. Some 2,400 people have been arrested in all. The interior minister said 45,000 police officers would be redeployed on Saturday night, mostly in the cities of Marseille and Lyon after an uptick in violence there.
Protesters and rioters took to the streets of cities and towns, clashing with police, despite Macron’s call for parents to keep their children at home. According to authorities, some 2,500 fires were started and stores were looted.
The Minister of Justice said that 30% of the detainees were minors, some as young as 13. “It is not up to the State to raise children”, declared the minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, attacking the parents of minors who have joined the rioters.
At a hilltop cemetery in Nanterre, where the teen identified only as Nahel was murdered, hundreds of people stood along the road to pay tribute to him as mourners carried his white coffin to the burial site, which was restricted to journalists. Before the burial, there were prayers in a mosque.
“Men first”, declared an official in a suit and tie to dozens of women waiting to enter the cemetery. But Nahel’s mother, dressed in white, walked right in to applause and headed for the grave. Many of the men were young and Arab or black.
Violence is taking its toll on Macron’s diplomatic profile. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s office said Macron phoned on Saturday to request a postponement of what would have been the first state visit by a French president to Germany in 23 years. Macron was scheduled to fly to Germany Sunday night to visit Berlin and two other German cities.
Nahel was shot during a traffic stop Tuesday in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. Video showed two officers approaching the car window, one of them pointing his gun at the driver. As the car moved forward, a police officer fired, killing the young man.
Source: AP
Source: Gestion
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